The present invention relates generally to the field of protective clothing, and more specifically to a protective hood (balaclava) for ground and aircrews.
Aircrew (AC) and ground personnel require individual protective ensembles during all phases of a mission because of the impracticality of preventing chemical agents in a liquid, aerosol, vapor, or particulate form from gaining access into the crew compartments of military aircraft. The potential sources of these chemical agents that pose this threat range from potential accidents to intentional chemical attacks by hostile forces.
The task of providing ground and aircrews with a suitable protective hood is alleviated, to some extent, by the systems disclosed in the following U.S. Patents, the disclosures of which are specifically incorporated by reference:
U.S. Pat. No. 2,728,916 issued to Clarke;
U.S. Pat. No. 2,800,901 issued to Monro;
U.S. Pat. No. 2,869,133 issued to Garbellano; and
U.S. Pat. No. 4,266,301 issued to Canda.
The above-cited references all disclose various systems of protective clothing. The Canda reference discloses a chemical biological agent protective hood comprising a helmet covering member, a hose enclosure member, a shoulder covering member and a rigid transparent lens. The hood is made of an impermeable material which fits down over the flight helmet and has a polycarbonate lens covering the face portion of the hood.
While all of the above cited references are instructive, most of these prior art references describe systems used to fully protect the person from a liquid/vapor agent threat when used with a filter/blower or other filter cannister. During the donning/doffing sequence, it has been established that most prior art systems will not provide the required protection to exposed skin, eyes or respiratory tract. This is also true if the filter/blower system in Canda's system were to fail.
In view of the foregoing discussion, it is apparent that there currently remains the need for a protective balaclava which is capable of being worn under a flight helmet, and which provides back up protection for the various failure modes in current mask/respirator designs. The present invention is intended to satisfy that need.